“What?” The look on Dee’s face, even in the dark, told Tiger he had no desire to say, but Tiger was insistent. “Tell me!”
Dee ran his hand nervously over his bald dome. “It was some fucked up shit, man! Like something out of a sci-fi movie!” He leaned in even closer, as if, even now, the wrong person might hear the absurdity he would utter. “I saw the earth stretch, like it was being pulled, even my own body … I felt it, man! I swear! Like I was rubber or something! Everything around me, the ground, the sky, clouds, buildings, people … it was like when a picture on a monitor screen distorts … just for a couple of seconds … and then it was gone! Things went back to normal, but others around me saw it, too. Felt that shit. We all just looked at each other like what the fuck just happened?”
Tiger rubbed his temple. Why was nothing ever easy? “Well, we’re not just gonna walk up to the front door and say, ‘Hey y’all! Mind if we look around?’ ” He fell back against the wall, bumping the back of his head against it repeatedly in frustration.
That crazy German bastard of a mad scientist. What had he done?
When it came to Schmidt, anybody in the know knew he’d always been the Cap’s right-hand man. The two had been together since junior high. Most knew Schmidt by the nickname Dalton had given him when they were kids, “Odder.” They were an almost inseparable team. The Cap’n had made his name building and racing rocket ships. Hot rod ships. Fast and sexy. Schmidt had been his engineman and a damned good one. He was the man behind the legendary Star*Burst engines and the Moonshine XXXpress fuel cells that powered Dalton’s iconic Chargers.
Still, where most people found Cap’n Dalton charismatic, Schmidt came across as peculiar and eccentric and not particularly charming. The few times Tiger had been around him, he found the man a touch arrogant. He was a descendant of one of the German scientists on Werner von Braun’s V2 team. His parents were brought to Huntsville by the American government to help develop the U.S. ballistic missile program and later, NASA. He wore his lineage like a badge. His ancestors had put America in space, helped put a man on the moon. At the same time, they’d also built some of the first weapons of mass destruction, their flying bombs raining death down upon British cities.
It was a family legacy filled with both shame and pride, something Schmidt had managed to reconcile. His eyes were on the future. Hundreds of years ago, his forefathers had helped the human race escape the bonds of earth, opening the doors to the final frontier. Fate had predestined him to continue the family’s work, to help man reach the stars.
As a result, more people had died at the hands of a brilliant scientist with a German surname. Sacrifices to the gods of science, maybe?
Tiger heard Cutter’s voice in his head, the same words, over and over.
Fuckin’ Nazi!
Chapter 10
Special Inspector Matt Burlington was lost. In Stella’s apartment, sitting on her bed, he realized, for the first time in a long time, he didn’t know what to do. And it scared him.
On an average night, in these early morning hours, the Special Inspector and his Executive Officer would be finishing up another round of lovemaking followed by a satisfying cigarette, before falling into a blissful, deep sleep. Sometimes, if it had been a particularly eventful day, they might talk a bit of shop, but the night would always end with them spooning, his nose buried in her red hair, his arm around her waist, pulling her possessively into him.
The evening’s search had turned up nothing. She was nowhere to be found. An audit of the apartment complex surveillance system indicated it had been remotely jammed. This tampering had occurred suspiciously around the time she usually arrived home from work. Foul play was all but certain.
Of course, the list of suspects was long. Special Inspector Matt Burlington had made a lot of enemies during his ambitious and illustrious career of crime-fighting in the Rocket City. Several people came to mind immediately who would want to get back at him: 0rganized crime figures, smugglers, rapists, murderers. It could’ve even been the relatives of someone he’d killed in the line of duty or sent off to Penal One.
Hell, the list was endless.
Cutter Hawkins? Possibly, but it didn’t seem his style. He didn’t build a criminal enterprise the size of his by making stupid decisions like kidnapping a ZiP. Especially Burlington’s right-hand woman and lover. He knew Matt well enough to know the hell he would rain down on his illegal ventures. Cutter knew such an idiotic move would be bad for business.
The Tuttles? They were bullies and cutthroats, but there weren’t enough brains between the three of them to pull off something this coordinated. Especially since most of Rayford’s had been blown off, and he now lay in a medically-induced coma. Ol’ Man Gideon’s forte was peddling Moonbeam to ULA recipients and pimping out young girls. Junior did whatever his demented daddy told him. Electronic countermeasures would be a stretch for them.
In his mind, he kept coming back
